NJ State Police stop more Black, Latino drivers, report finds

Arya Sundaram

Published Jul 11, 2023

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A New Jersey State Police vehicle in 2019.

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Arya Sundaram

Published Jul 11, 2023

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New Jersey's attorney general has assembled a team of researchers to craft a pilot program to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in traffic stops — after a state-commissioned analysis found troopers were more likely to stop, search, arrest and use force against Black and Latino drivers.

As police departments across the country – including in Los Angeles, Seattle, Philadelphia and elsewhere – overhaul how they enforce traffic stops, The New Jersey State Police is among the largest agencies in size and geographic scope to seek reforms. Nationally, many of the changes have been prompted by several high-profile police killings of drivers during such encounters.

“It is unacceptable for the actions of law enforcement to have a disparate impact on communities of color,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a statement.

He said he was committed to correcting the problem, “whatever the root cause of these disparities” — including if they’re the result of “implicit bias, systemic faults in policies or something more intentional.”

The researchers will analyze traffic enforcement data, and develop and analyze policies — to be piloted by the New Jersey State Police in the coming months — to reduce racial disparities, improve officer and road safety, and reduce traffic crash fatalities, he said.

Head researcher Matthew B. Ross told Gothamist that the team will aim to limit enforcement of minor infractions that don't affect street safety and are disproportionately handed out to people of color.

Historically, these have included equipment violations — such as for overly tinted windows, rather than more serious moving violations, like speeding or reckless driving, which are more strongly tied to traffic fatalities, Ross said. But the team’s final recommendations will be based on an analysis of the state's traffic data.

Ross, an associate economics and policy professor at Northeastern University, said that although some cities have banned officers from stopping drivers for minor infractions, he doesn’t intend to wholly limit trooper discretion. Instead, he envisions stricter policies about the types of infractions officers should focus on enforcing.

“There really hasn't been any sort of large-scale reforms that have been enacted with this careful data-driven design,” Ross said. “It’s a real opportunity for New Jersey not only to mitigate some of the disparities that they're seeing in their own data but really to be a national leader. And helping … re-imagining the way that we do these things nationally.”

On behalf of Platkin’s office, Ross previously analyzed data from more than 6 million traffic stops by New Jersey State Police between 2009 and 2021. He found the share of Black and Latino drivers stopped by New Jersey State Police has increased over that period, from 35% of all motorists to 46%.

New Jersey is about 15% Black and about 22% Latino, according to the latest U.S. Census estimates.

When the sun was out — and skin color more visible — Black drivers were 9% more likely and Latino drivers were 16% to be stopped compared to white drivers.

And after being stopped, Black drivers were 90% more likely to be searched than white drivers, even though troopers were 10% less likely to find illegal items, the study found.

With Black drivers, troopers were also 88% more likely to arrest and 130% more likely to use force.

Latino motorists were 46% more likely to be searched, 57% more likely to be arrested, and 28% more likely to experience force.

Ross will helm the research team and will be joined by CarlyWill Sloan, an assistant economic professor at West Point, and Kenneth Barone, a project manager at the University of Connecticut’s Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy.

They will retain “complete independence” in their analysis, according to Platkin’s office, and their findings will be made publicly available.

Last year, the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld a ban on racial profiling.

The New Jersey State Police spent a decade under federal monitoring, beginning in 1999, after the Justice Department alleged in a lawsuit it had conducted illegal racial profiling for years. The agency was required to institute several reforms regarding police training and oversight.

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public safety

new jersey

Race And Justice Unit